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Playing Tough and Tender

PARIS — The sweet, soaring music filled the hall as Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons orchestrated an ode to women. In the vast space, the models, with tiny heads of rose-entwined hair, hefty mannish bomber jackets and long, light, translucent gypsy skirts, brought the Givenchy show to feminist life.

The collection that the designer Riccardo Tisci unveiled was as surprising as it was tough and tender — surprising because the cliché of Carmen and the feverish intensity of the wild gypsy was the opposite of these purposeful, pensive women walking the giant circle of a catwalk.

First out was a fawn: a Bambi figure rearing on the front of one of Mr. Tisci’s famous sweatshirts, worn with a slim, transparent beaded skirt. Then came zippered biker jackets with black chiffon skirts. Only flowered bangles at this stage suggested the breakout to come: the smothering of roses, as dense and florid as a summer garden, printed on jackets, mixed with plaid and in full bloom on a chiffon skirt frilled and flounced with Carmen red satin.

“It was about roses and gypsies and big skirts. I have been looking in the Givenchy archives and mine and I found a lot of things,” said Mr. Tisci backstage, receiving applause from his hip music supporters, including Kanye West and his partner Kim Kardashian.

If you looked into this cauldron of color and pattern, there were classic pieces, from a fur bomber jacket to a tiered black dress with its gypsy flounces contradicted by the pants beneath — that masculine/feminine thing again.

Mr. Tisci crammed in many things, from paisley prints in flame colors for a straight skirt with just a kick of a frill above the snaky patchwork calf-high boots. Or just a sweater and a long chiffon skirt.

But each piece had a message that the designer has reiterated since being named the house designer in 2005: a dual male/female sexuality with a hard undercurrent. But this time the collection was an homage not to the tough but to the tender.

Stella McCartney has grown up in the shadow of her famous father, receiving barbs and oblique comments that she would not be where she is without being who she is.

So how splendid that the rock royalty for her show on Monday included Paul McCartney, sitting next to Bono, while the youngest of her four children peeked out from the back. For this show was a triumph for Ms. McCartney, taking her to that magical fashion place where she has a distinct personality, vision and message. It could be summed up as a dynamic woman of today with a sporty energy who expects her clothes to work as hard as she does.

“I could wear everything on the runway,” said the designer backstage with her brood. But that might not always have been the case, for recently Ms. McCartney has chosen to divide her collections into different sections: business, Olympic influence, red carpet for Hollywood friends.

This time the collection was united in its approach. It started with pinstripes, that most mannish of materials, but the big, generous touch of the 1980s coats and dresses had a smart way of covering the body yet letting it undulate beneath. That male/female thing was perfectly expressed by plain jersey dresses inlaid with lace. The boyish, even child-like side of Ms. McCartney came through in a sporty outfit with cartoon writing spelling out “SKATE.”

The evening wear was perhaps a little weak, given that there wasn’t much except a violet dress gathered at the bust and a white tunic and pants. But with the red carpet turning into a yawn, even that approach was smart, showing a designer who is on the go and on the fashion mark.

As Giambattista Valli had the cream of the young European socialites front row at his show on Monday, and as his other day job is to create designs for the snow brand Moncler, it is not surprising that those two colors — cream and white — were at the fore in his winter collection.

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Stella McCartney, autumn/winter 2013, in Paris.Credit
Catwalking

Both the opening outfits of white sporty jackets with draped cream chiffon skirts and the beautiful ending of the same shades in a long gown showed a fresh sporty side to Mr. Valli, who said backstage that he wanted to think about boys and girls walking together — referring both to a duo on the subway and to mixed masculine and feminine fabrics.

The designer’s show on Monday was the semiofficial start of couturiers showing ready-to-wear in this second Paris fashion week. And with this collection, Mr. Valli proved that he has a divide-and-rule policy about his different lines that is working very well.

His love of excess and decoration had been banished from this show, which was based on fur used in different ways, from coats to waist trims. It was also focused on the imperfect, with holes deliberately placed in sweaters — not such an original fashion idea but still adding to the feel that this collection could hit the streets and maybe even the slopes.

There were some flashes of color and decoration: familiar animal prints, bold orange flowers and unexpected pastels, one almond green coat scattered with snowy sparkles. This was winter at its most glamorous — but wearable.

Karl Lagerfeld, the oracle, has already spoken: Sacai, he said on Sunday, is the most interesting current brand. And he had not even seen the stellar show Monday when the Japanese designer Chitose Abe excelled herself in giving polish and variety to her long-held idea of the masculine/feminine sides of women playing out on the front and back of an outfit. But instead of the sweet lace back to a more rigorous skirt front, this season she had developed the idea with rare skill.

Curving mirrors behind the models told the back story, primarily the current hot mix of different fabrics so that a tweed coat or a velvet dress might have a puffa back. One plaid jacket would be inset with padded nylon, while another had tangerine-colored lace appliquéd on a similar wool. Even knitting was given the same treatment as a tiger pattern morphed into fringe and lace.

In a season when melding textures is a major story, this designer took the idea and ran with it.

Paul van Zyl, one of the brains behind Maiyet, the company that nurtures craftsmanship around the globe, waxed lyrical about the center that he and his partner, Kristy Caylor, are building with the African-born architect David Adjaye. It is designed to shelter and nurture silk weavers — both Muslim and Hindu — in Varanasi, India.

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Giambattista Valli, autumn/winter 2013, in Paris.Credit
Catwalking

But to expect rivulets of silk running like an ethnic trail through the show is to misunderstand the purpose of the brand: a focus on using craft skills without defining geography or culture. (Traditionally made rum from the outskirts of Manhattan was on offer to guests.)

So the Maiyet silk, saving a historic but dying Indian trade, came out as a skirt worn with a fur top made in New York or a silken bomber jacket with stretch leather pants, sexy and cute.

The success that Maiyet has and deserves is this approach of “not charity, but work” toward the craftspeople they nurture. Yet energy and punch were missing from Gabriella Zanzani, the brand’s creative director. Maiyet needs more than to make streamlined modern clothes with personalized workmanship to capture as clients the growing community that rejects fast fashion made in sweatshops.

In the fashion divide between architects and decorators, John Galliano was on the latter side. Yet his decorative and romantic vision always had as its spine the work of his tailor, Bill Gaytten, who has taken over the brand.

This was the season when Mr. Gaytten came out with a show on his own terms: not a minimalist but a pragmatist, the designer knows that he is designing for a tough world when the power woman suit, softened with waves cut into the top half, might seem more appropriate than romantic gestures.

The same strict lines continued in black, until there was a literal sprinkling of color, as a pink was splashed onto dark blue. But the style remained uncompromisingly linear, with scraped back hair and plain makeup toughening even a lush fur tunic — although a similar sleeveless fur top was partnered with a long, pleated black chiffon skirt just touched with pink.

The brand has become a different John Galliano, with technique more evident that fantasy. But “chapeau!” — as the French say for “hats off!” — to Mr. Gaytten for being his own man.